Potholes, cracks and ruts in rapidly deteriorating roadways are costing Southern California car owners an extra $1,031 a year to drive on the second worst maintained roads in the nation, according to a report released Thursday by a Washington, D.C., think tank.

About 73 percent of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metro region’s roads are in poor condition, second only to San Francisco and Oakland at 74 percent. Both regions ranked worse than Detroit and New York City. The Riverside-San Bernardino area came in 14th on the list, with 46 percent rated poor.

The 1,040-page bill would authorize about $47 billion in highway and transit funding but would close the transportation funding gap for three years, not six. Federal gas and other transportation taxes raise about $35 billion a year. The federal Highway Trust Fund is forecast to drop to only $4 billion by the end of the month without additional funding. Congress must vote by July 31 to continue federally funded highway programs, including money used by cities and counties for paving and maintaining roadways.

“We are aware of those conversations taking place (in Washington) and heating up. Congress will have to find a solution,” said Carolyn Kelly, associated director of research and communications for TRIP.

Without a long-term funding guarantee from the federal government, it is near impossible for states and cities to plan projects, Kelly said, even though federal dollars are just a piece of the transportation pie.

By not fixing roads, drivers are making more trips to mechanics for flat tires, worn out shocks and general repairs; they also are seeing faster depreciation of vehicle values than those driving in cities with well-maintained roads, she said.

“That money would be much better spent on the front end by fixing the transportation system instead of passing those costs along to drivers,” Kelly said.

Fifteen California urban areas ranked among the regions with the most deteriorated pavements in the nation. These included: Concord, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento, Temecula-Murrieta, Hemet, Stockton, Modesto, Oxnard and Victorville-Hesperia-Apple Valley.

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.